State of New Jersey Issues Mandatory Quarantine Order for Dr. Nancy Snyderman and Crew | Planet Princeton

The New Jersey Health Department has issued a mandatory quarantine order for Dr. Nancy Snyderman and the other members of an NBC crew who were exposed to a cameraman with Ebola. The mandatory order was issued after a voluntary 21-day isolation agreement was violated.

A spokeswoman for the state health department told the The Associated Press that Snyderman and her crew remains symptom-free and that there is no reason for concern of exposure to the deadly virus to the community. Citing privacy concerns, the spokeswoman would not give further details, including who violated the agreement and how the state learned of a violation.

Snyderman and her crew were reporting in Liberia about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa with Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance cameraman who was infected with the disease. He is now being treated in Omaha, Nebraska. The director of the Nebraska Medical Center’s isolation unit said Friday that Mukpo’s condition was slightly improved, the Associated Press reported.

Port Authority: CDC Investigating Sick Passenger For Possible Ebola At Newark Airport

7 Common Myths About Pandemics and New Diseases | HuffPo

Novel diseases and pandemics have captured our global attention. Yet, for all we hear about them, what do we actually know — or perhaps more accurately, not know about them? Here we dispel common myths about novel diseases and pandemics.

Myth 1. They’re just a public health problem.
Novel diseases and pandemics typically are perceived to fall squarely into the public health realm. Paradoxically, they actually interface with nearly every other sector. For example, they raise major concerns for food production, biosecurity and environmental health. And their implications can be expensive; the costs of SARS to the global economy was estimated by BioERA at >$30-$50 billion, and the past decade of outbreaks has been responsible for hundreds of $US billions in losses.